Fly Fishing Journal: Christmas Gift

Christmas Gift – I Could Walk

The ghosts of the Hungry Ghost Month had long gone home. My right leg had finally gathered enough guts to help carry me out of my house before sunrise. Uncle Wong and Adi had agreed to meet up at the White House for a fly fishing session. As I drove towards the destination, I kept the windows of my bus opened to smell the cool sweet misty morning air along the reservoir road. Reached the car park just in time to watch the silhouettes of Uncle Wong and Adi disappeared behind the bushes. I was full of energy, but was careful not to walk into anything which will injure the right leg again before it heal completely. I like to rig up my rod and reel as I walked towards the fishing grounds. But today I had to be extra careful. So I rig up my LeoRod and Hardy Bougle at the car park before walking down the slope to the flood gates to join Uncle Wong and Adi.

Uncle Wong was kind enough to leave a spot more accessible to a handicap me to fish. He took up the spot at the peninsula. Adi took a spot next to me at the granite rocks. Splash!!! A peacock bass bend Uncle Wong’s LeoRod. Splash!!! Again, another peacock bass hit Uncle Wong’s black fly. I took some pictures of him. Adi and I salivated while Uncle Wong caught all the peacock basses. Then, like he was reading my mind or he could see the saliva dripping from my opened mouth, he asked me over to take the spot. Sure enough, I caught my peacock bass for the day and gave the spot back to Uncle Wong. He caught many more. Adi caught a few too. I missed a few take because my rusty arm was not fast enough to strike when the peacock basses nipped the fly.

Time’s up. We unrigged the tackles and made our way back to the car park. Ah Hoe’s as usual, but he was closed for the holiday. We had Kway Chap for breakfast and shared the usual fishermen’s lies. An enjoyable day to begin with. Merry Christmas to all.

The empteen peacock bass which Uncle Wong caught this morning.

One the way home, I put my right hand on my the right leg and drove slowly, reminiscing on the trip I made with Uncle Chui to Tampines Quarry. Some supernatural things that happened there. The words of the fortune teller about my misfortune during the Hungry Ghost Month still echos in my ears. The fortune teller had told me that I had stepped on something dirty. Dirty to him means something from the other world. It reminded me of what Uncle Chui had called out when he murmured “ Siam Ahhh….” when he pee into the bushes at Tampines Quarry.

Uncle Chui was trying to calm my nerves when something unworldly was moving the plants and leaves, in broad daylight. I tried to snap some pictures with my camera but most of the pictures came out blank. I could only get one and half the picture colours were weird. After that the camera just died. But it came back to life later when I brought it out to take pictures of the fishes I caught.

Wise words from Uncle Chui.
“Billy, I know you are scared of the ho-hiah-tee.”
“But don’t worry.”
“When you come to these ulu places, don’t scold bad words and don’t curse anything.”
“When you pang-gio, you tell the ho-hiah-tee to siam.”
“Nothing will happen to you”

I asked him, “Then pang-sai how?”

“Billy ah, ler si-peh ti-kee hor.”
“One day you kena then you know.”

Now I kena liow lah…………leg broken.
On the morning when I was so eager to test the LeoRod, I forgot to say “siam” when I made my way to the rapids at the river. But thinking back, I was lucky not to have a full bladder. Something more valuable might be broken instead of the right leg………..hmmm…… young guys like me should listen more to the older people.